Tuesday, July 19, 2005

Europe to review e-money rules.....

Finextra reports that the European Commission is to review e-money rules. This is just as scheduled. There are only some minor glitches here.

First of all, the last three years should be the years in which all players in the e-money world were to be properly supervised. But the commission struck a deal with mobile operators so these would be exempted from the regulation. As a result, many small innovative companies (for whom the directive meant to establish a level playing field to compete with banks) went out of business, leaving basic only the bigger guys (Paypal) in the e-money market. See also this website of former Dutch m-payment players, which apparently documents the rise and fall of non-bank, non-telco m-payments providers in the Netherlands.

So while the Commission is keeping up appearances and pretending that this is an official evaluation, the only question that remains is which trick they will pull to ensure the competitive advantage of mobile operators in the m-payment business.

Internal market commissioner Charlie McCreevy words can thus only be viewed as a major cover up. Should we really believe this: 'I am personally committed to ensuring that the Directives we adopt fulfil their objectives and improve the functioning of the single market. Should the evidence prove that this is not the case, we will not hesitate to take decisive action.'